There are many posts (mainly by one individual) on how easy this game is to win. My post is how to make the game extremely difficult to win or at least in less than 200 turns.
First off pick a galaxy appropriate for the number of factions playing the game, this is what I suggest... ( I know I missed a few but, you get the idea)
5 tiny
10 small
30 medium
40 large
50 gigantic
60 immense
80 insane.
With this many factions in the game it will difficult to colony rush your way to more than 10-20 planets. (even with abundant habitable planets/stars) I also suggest having all the minor races turned on as well.
Resources doesn't really matter (random is fine but, abundant just helps speed things along).
Pirates a must. the more the better will provide more of a challenge against any colony rushes.
Very slow game pace/technology rates and no tech trading. (This will prevent you from spamming the AI and trading techs, even fair trades.)
Now choose your difficulty. I recommend starting with godlike and working your way down as you loose. If anyone else has suggestions on how to make a game impossible to win, feel free to add suggestions
the very slow pacing will probably hurt the AI more than the human player. the penalty is hardly noticeable when you secialize planets - which is something the AI is bad at, and players are really good at. other than that, your settings sound quite... challenging. knife fight in tight quarters from turn 1
I am thinking of a mod with a totally black screen, where you have to guess where everything is, Very challenging.
GCII has NO stars on the map, except on the mini so you kinda have to guess what direction to go towards. I know you can do this in this game, man does it make it a bit challenging.
Grrrrrrrrr. Too challenging. I don't like challenges.
(Whine whine whine whine whine).
P.S. But in reality don't try the insane 80 or the immense 60. The game will probably crash. In fact I'm not even sure about the computer being able to handle playing any games with more than 20 AI.
I thought that was the whole point to several of your posts.... The fact that the games were too easy are they not? This points out how to make them more challenging to make them more fun and harder for you. You even have stated not challenging enough...
In reply to your post on not to try the insane 80 or immense 60, the game handles it fine, I know from experience and I'm playing on it. If your computer can't handle it that's another story and maybe it's time to upgrade to provide yourself a fun and rewarding challenging game
I just started a new game.
15 Ai, Insane, tight clusters, Rare/Rare, Pirates-rare, Research-Slow, I just stepped up to all Gifted Ai.
On turn 2, just below (south?) of my Earth/homeworld, I found a class 25 Ghostworld infested with Supersharks!, Hmm +50%, +20% (sharks). Ill put two Manufa near the Colony and have a perfect circle with two research bonuses on the circle along with more hexes to put farms on. I hope I can catch up! Time to rush research buildings!
The game can comfortably handle at least 50 opponents without even slowing down much. I don't think I've tried playing with less than 20...
Good Luck
I don't really like the godlike AI due to FoW ignoring sillyness and the sheer number of handicapping bonuses it gets, but below that the main difficulty factor seems to be how many planets you can get your hands on. If you get a few big planets, you are pretty much guaranteed to outproduce the AI for warhips due to how we're able to specialize and they can't yet.
So yes, I agree - making the number of planets relatively low/AI is the path to challenge. Though, expansionist/adaptable AI who can take a lot of planets (especially early) do tend to do fairly well at grabbing lots of territory.
Here is what I do for a fun game (at least in the beginning)
Play an immense map, Uncommon for ALL planet and resource choices. No pirates, very slow tech, slow game pace. Have at least 10 AI's and some minors. Most of the majors end up with 12 -20 planets after expansion (depending on start position of course)
One of the Custom AI"s you make be: patriotic, synthetic, focused on expansion, tech, military as it's first three; Diplomacy is dead last. Malevolent ideology. Traits shoud be Aggressive, Cruel, Expansionist, and Xenophobic.
Give them a 16 quality homeworld.
For points, please do the following:
-2 to Fertile, Popular, traders, farmers, Agile and Likeable. No one likes them, they don't need food or nookie, and don't move so fast.
You should now have 17 points to spend.
+2: Productive, Clever, Economical, Observant, Fast, Organized, Dense, Tough
+1: Adventuresome
Give them the Yor Tech tree.
I'm using some of TurielD's ships and of course, these guys are the Borg.
It never fails that my UFP and the Borg end up next to each other and they declare early war on me and it's a slug fest for many turns to see if I can get them under control and beaten back. Most of the time, around when I get the upper hand (and have concentrated my forces on that front), another AI(usually my version of Klingons) will declare war on me and I'm back to fighting a two front war, while trying to get enough tech to get a real advantage over them. When all that is finally taken care of, I realize that I'm only 3rd in the tech race and the Romulans are way out in front. Good thing the Krynn are between me and them.
SamDominion,
That sounds like a hell of a fun game!
As a side note I play to have fun and I am not always after a win. If the game is fun and I get crushed I count that game a win. If I am having fun pushing back handicapped ai and I look up and its 7 hours since I started, I count that as a win AND a good game.
If you design some borg-looking ships, send them my way and I'll put them in a faction style - there's already a Borg colour-set included with my mod
Will do... As an addendum to my earlier post..
I also went through the pain of playing the YOR for an extended time on a previous game. Making sure to design ships (regrettably, YOR styled) all along the way. Giving several options at every tech level. I'm not a fan of playing the YOR but it helps the AI when they have some actual ship designs that a player would use.
I make my "Borg" use the YOR ship style also and they definitely use my own ship designs against me. I feel it's a decent part of what makes them a pain in the early and mid game.
That's a big part of the reason I started to mod. I was kinda tired of having to personally design ships all the time, so I started fiddling with the blueprint system so the game would automatically make the ships the way I like them heh.
If you want a really challenging game then have 56 AI and two or more Human players on a Huge map with everything set to low and no tech trading. Or if it is a SP game same map and AI numbers with low settings and Highest pirate setting.
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